February 15, 2019

Funding Year (FY) 2019 Window Countdown

TIP OF THE WEEK: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 is the last day to certify your FY2019 FCC Form 470 to allow for the required 28 days and still certify your FY2019 FCC Form 471 before the application filing window closes at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 27.

Commitments for Funding Year 2018

Funding Year 2018. USAC released FY2018 Wave 45 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) on February 15. As of February 15, FY2018 commitments total over $2.17 billion.

On the date that FCDLs are issued, you can access your FCDL notification from the Notifications section of your landing page in the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC).

Focus on Participant Experience

In December of 2018, we featured a series of three articles in the SL News Brief that provided updates on the transition to our new vendor. As promised, USAC added extra applicant and service provider support and implemented enhancements to improve the experience for the E-rate community.

All review activities, including program integrity assurance (PIA), appeals, funding commitment waves and payments, have continued during the transition.

The open cases that required a change in reviewers as USAC worked on the transition (including invoices, appeals and post-commitment requests) have all been reassigned. If you had an open case at the end of December, you should have received an email from your new reviewer providing their contact information, an update on your case assignment, next steps, and – if appropriate – review questions for you to answer.

As previously mentioned, for the E-rate participants that have open, inactive forms and requests, these items have been transitioned to the new vendor and participants will receive outreach at a later time.

We appreciate the support and cooperation of the E-rate community as we continue to work with our new vendor.

Upcoming E-rate Webinars

We have one more February event in our office hour webinar series, which focuses on specific E-rate topics covered in our online E-rate Program Training Series. Please join us for our Data office hour webinar on February 19. If you are interested in attending, register for the webinar and watch the prerequisite training module(s). 

A list of upcoming webinars is posted on the Webinars page on the USAC website.

More Reminders on the Competitive Bidding Process and the FCC Form 470

For the next few weeks, we will provide additional reminders for program participants to help them through the process.

How do I respond to questions from potential bidders?

Applicants – and consultants that act on behalf of applicants – should respond to bidder inquiries in a timely manner so that competitive bidding deadlines can be met.

• You can post questions received from potential bidders along with your answers on a website or in an RFP document attached to your certified FCC Form 470.
• Service providers should also respond to posted FCC Forms 470 and RFPs with specific requests for additional information necessary to prepare responsive bids. Generic emails that do not pose questions related to applicant service descriptions do not require a response from the applicant.

As a service provider, how do I locate an FCC Form 470 to submit a bid?

First, review the FCC Forms 470 you are interested in – especially the narrative sections and any attachments (what we refer to as "RFP documents"). Applicants who have specific requirements on preparing and submitting bids should provide that information. You can also contact the contact person or the technical contact person identified on the form for information.

You can search for individual FCC Forms 470 and download summary information from FCC Forms 470 in EPC or from the USAC website. Form data is updated immediately in EPC, and updated overnight on the USAC website.

To access FCC Forms 470 in EPC:

• From the Actions tab in EPC, choose Search and Export Certified FCC Forms 470.
• Choose the search criteria you want and then click Continue.
• Click the form number of an individual form to view that form, or click the Export Search Results button to download summary information on your search results.

To view an individual FCC Form 470 and its RFP documents on the USAC website:

• From the FCC Form 470 Tools section of the Tools page, choose View an FCC Form 470 (FY2016 and later).
• Choose your search criteria and then click the Search button. Note: If you choose to export your data to HTML, scroll down the search page to locate your search results.
• Click the form number to view an individual form or the RFP document name to view an RFP document.

To download summary information from FCC Forms 470 from the USAC website:

• From the FCC Form 470 Tools section of the Tools page, choose Download 470 Information (FY2016 and later).
• Choose your search criteria and then click the Search button. You can choose to export your data to file formats HTML, XLS, or CSV.